About the tour

“Go Wild!”: San Diego Native Garden Tour inaugural self-guided tour of 25 native gardens, public and private, around San Diego County. Also included are lectures by native plant landscape designers, plant sales, refreshments and the opportunity to win a garden design.

Joe Ferguson and his wife, Laurie, jumped at the chance years ago to purchase the lot across the street from their home overlooking Lake Hodges. That half-acre of land, home to just three scruffy oaks, stood untouched until the couple and their son were joined by twin boys in 1998. “Then Laurie asked for a lawn where the kids could play,” recalls Joe. “I’ve been working on the garden ever since.”

The long oval of turf is still there, a favorite spot for the boys’ soccer and football games. But now they share the garden with their parents and friends who are drawn to its many grown-up charms — a mature native plant landscape and rustic garden rooms ranging from a cozy cedar cabin and shaded hammock to a fanciful fireplace open to the sky and lake breezes. Ferguson’s rock collection and quirky art finds add to the romance that has enticed two wedding parties there.

“I did the original design and called out the plantings,” said landscape designer Greg Rubin of California’s Own Native Landscape Design in Escondido. “But Joe really made it his own and gave it character with all of his creativity.”

On April 28-29, Ferguson’s garden will be among 25 public and private gardens from Chula Vista to Fallbrook open for visits as part of the first San Diego Native Plant Garden Tour — “Go Wild!” Rubin and tour organizers hope this inaugural event, sponsored by the San Diego Chapter of the California Native Plants Society, “will showcase the many possibilities with natives in the landscape.”

“Native plants just feel right,” says Joe, a dairy cow veterinarian who works with the region’s few remaining cattle ranches. But as he brought the garden to life, he admits to a couple of false starts, including flings with hydroseeding and tropicals, and a few daunting setbacks. “I remember picking up the plants Greg had selected — all 700 of them — in a friend’s horse trailer,” Joe says. “I planted them in April; the heat was brutal. Six months later, I had lost 15 percent of them.”

Among the many survivors were two showy bloomers that have become favorites — wild lilac (Ceanothus) and manzanita (Arctostaphylos). In early spring, in the rear of the garden, a hedge of ‘Tassajara Blue’ wild lilac echoes the deep blue lake in the distance, while clusters of dainty pale pink bells on ‘Sunset’ and ‘Howard McMinn’ manzanita scent the air with honey.

Native sages also perfume the garden — and sometimes Joe’s car, when he tucks a piece of ‘Pozo Blue’ Cleveland sage (Salvia clevelandii) inside before heading off on his rounds. It and purple sage (Saliva leucophylla) are planted near the cabin, built from a Canadian-made kit and shaded by an airy ‘Desert Museum’ palo verde.